Most teenagers want to be considered "cool". But do they also want to be thought of as green – in the environmental sense of the word, that is? Trying to make greenness equate with cool is the focus of a new three-year research project involving five British universities sharing £1.5m from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

The scheme has been christened Teddi, which doesn't sound particularly cool, but does condense into a handy acronym the stated aims of Transforming Energy Demand through Digital Innovation. Parents may yet be inadvertent beneficiaries of the scheme – the ones who follow teenage offspring around the house, switching off lights, computers, televisions, mobile chargers and hairdryers, while still receiving electricity bills only slightly lower than the gross national product of Albania.

"Most teenagers are non-bill-paying consumers," says the project leader, Dr Janet Read, a computer scientist at the University of Central Lancashire. Read ought to know: three of her four children still live at home. (One is 14, one 17 and one 20.)

"Subliminally, that might have given me the idea," she concedes. "But I'm not over-preoccupied by our domestic electricity bills, to be honest. It was more that this project offered the opportunity to change the way a whole generation think about their energy consumption."

Read spends a lot of time in schools. "I've always felt frustrated that teenagers get such a bad press," she says. "I think many of them are attuned to environmental issues and blame their parents' generation for being negligent with the earth's resources."

But how do you encourage teenagers to show that they can be more responsible without seeming earnest or dull? Two of the universities involved, Northumbria and the Institute of Education, in London, will be advising on teenage psychology and how it evolves between the ages of 12 and 19. "They will also be creating tools to evaluate changes in attitudes as the project progresses," says Read. In addition, the universities of Birmingham and Swansea will be developing the technology to enable youngsters to monitor their energy consumption.

"All of us have two core schools in our locality," Read explains, "which means that we can reach quite a lot of students at various stages in their education. I know from watching my own children that attitudes can change very quickly within a comparatively short time. Teenagers tend to be very trend-driven and they also have a great need to belong."

Researchers will be encouraging those who participate to spread the word on social networking sites. Initially, a competition will be set up in each of the 10 core schools to create "a social community of shared experiences" through narrative, images and video – essentially an online diary about how they consume energy and how successful they are in changing habits. "We might have a few iPads to give away to successful schools," says Read.

She has been working closely with Dr Russell Beale, an expert in computer design and artificial intelligence at Birmingham University. While she spends time with "junior teens" (13-15) and "senior teens" (16-19) to draw out their design ideas on energy monitoring devices, he will be informing them about the sort of technology they might like to think about.

"My initial idea," says Beale, "is to integrate something into their mobile phones that turns from green to red when their energy consumption goes over a certain level." Is that feasible? "The work that Janet's done so far suggests that it is. Our partners include [the energy company] EON and AlertMe, experts in developing censors that monitor energy use in the home. Mobile technology these days has such great connectivity that such information can be passed quickly to your phone. Our aim is to create fun, cool things that they like having around and that help users to engage others in the process of change. Things, in other words, that make a real difference to people's lives."

Making a Difference, condensed to MAD1 for younger teens and MAD2 for older ones, is the theme of phase two, when computer scientists from Swansea become involved in building the devices their Birmingham colleagues have designed. Then there will be more consultation with the youthful would-be users before refinements are added. Around 40 pupils will be invited to a summer school in August 2012, where they'll be instructed on how to conduct interviews and interpret data. Then they'll be sent back to their peer groups and families to gather information on attitudes to energy use in preparation for a dissemination workshop in May, 2013, where industry and academics will discuss technology designs that change the energy habits of teenagers.

By that time, those who were 15 at the start of the project will be around 18. Read is acutely aware that, in the fast-changing world of teenage trends, what is cool one year can seem passé the next. "There is a chance that could happen," she says. "But if we could get one year to make a difference, then that could have a big impact. And what you learn in youth often comes back to you in adulthood."